t speculators, and all the people connected with any form of racing, betting, lotteries or raffles, to name only a few. Gambling, respectable or otherwise, requires someone to win and someone to lose--and who'd be willing to lose on a result he already knew?

A few new jobs were created by others who looked ahead and foresaw such things as earthquakes, fires, floods, volcanic eruptions and violent storms. They set up special teams for handling these disasters, evacuating people and removing valuable property beforehand.

This explained why, as we looked ahead, we saw fewer and fewer deaths occurring from these tragedies. The growing efficiency of the rescue services worked wonders--which were part of the future, as you'd expect, not successful attempts to change it--although there were always a small number of deaths, mainly the kind of people who never used to pay any attention to the news, didn't look at road signs, and the like.

Some of them belonged to the crowd who opposed Bilbo Grundy

Reviews

A clever story of the impact on the society of 2017 of a machine that allows anyone to see up to two years into the future. Yaaaay! weathermen go extinct. It portrays a stunted world where people only try what they would have succeeded in.

Fairly clever story. Of course there's a solution to the problem, and the obligatory ironic twist at the end.

Not a bad way to kill 15 minutes. I found myself thinking back to this story a day or two after I'd read it.

Download

Donate a small amount via Paypal below or read about some other ways that you can support ManyBooks.